A god game where you are a proper god. Omniscient. Nearly Omnipotent. But ultimately unable to influence free will and the stupidity of humanity. (You can control everything from the weather, to the time of day, to the seasons and natural disasters, to the landscape, but not humans)(Note: You don't have to actively control anything, the world will run without your direct interference, but you'll see a schedule/timeline passing by at the bottom of the screen with events on it like "sunset" "earthquake" or "drought" which you can click on and change at will).
Example of a game element that summarizes the way the game works game: Your prophet, I.E. the method by which you give instructions/commandments/announcements to the people of the world. You'd be able to choose from many different types of people/things. You can only have one prophet at a time, and you cant change your prophet unless your current one dies. Granted, you can kill your current prophet at any time, but then you have to establish the people's faith in your new one (they don't instantly know that 'he is the one'). You basically tell your prophet what the people should do/what is going to happen
A. A literal, biblical style prophet (Moses, Jonah, or Muhammad) Advantages=Very clear ability to communicate Disadvantages=Prone to greed, making declarations and demands "in the name of god" without your instruction also; outright disobedience could result, do to the prophet's own free will (see Jonah)
B. An Oracle (Oracle at Delphi, Edgar Cayce). Advantages= Unable to disobey or lie, as they are in a trance when receiving commands Disadvantages= Many people will come with questions, and if you don't answer them all, faith in your prophet may diminish over time; Do to the nature of going into a trance, your Prophet's lifespan is shortened considerably (See Edgar Cayce).
C. Animal Avatar (A holy animal that appears and speaks to people [I couldn't think of any examples]). Advantages= Absolute obedience, it will never lie or make up false prophesies, as it has nothing to gain; Also, unlike an Oracle, not many people will actively seek it out (no more silly questions); Finally, even if your current one dies, if you pick a similar animal as your new prophet, you lose very little faith. Disadvantages= Even shorter life span than an Oracle; prone to being killed by humans or other animals in the wild; cannot convey complex instructions like "build a giant tanker ship forty yards long and load two of every animal onto it because god has decided to flood the entire planet" cannot speak to a specific human (they all look alike to it).
D. Divine inspiration (AKA the "If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself" method, example: God speaking to Noah in the above scenario). Advantages= No room for error or misinterpretation (unless you make it that way, you can be as clear or as vague as you want); No faith or buildup is required for the affected individual, they KNOW it's real. Disadvantages= While the target person knows that you're real, everyone else (with the possible exception of close family members) will not believe them; also, the target may be afraid of telling anyone else about the experience, for fear of not being believed or worse, thought to be crazy. (Note, when you have no current Prophet, this is your default way of communicating with other people, it is also the method by which you select new Prophets. You can still use this when you have a prophet, but the target is even less likely to be believed by other people).
E. Direct manifestation (Jesus [in certain belief systems, in fact, put that for all the examples, just to be safe]). Advantages= No room for error or misinterpretation, very long life span. Disadvantages= Very hard to build up faith (the game assumes that "I hear god" is easier to believe than "I AM god"), you only get one per game (maybe two, or maybe a cool-down of an hour is set on it that starts after the Prophet's death, not really sure).
